guitar tabs / updates / news / reviews / interviews / columns / lessons / community / forums / contests UG Plus login: pass: Go Cranberries: 'It's Not Going To Be Hard To Deliver..., date: january 26, 2012 Join Ultimate-Guitar.com! UG plus: remove banner + Submit tab INTERVIEWS Search! Advanced + Submit review FRESH TABS | 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | TOP 100 TABS + Submit article UG plus: remove banner Cranberries: 'It's Not Going To Be Hard To Deliver 'Roses'' artist: cranberries date: 01/26/2012 category: interviews It is –2 degrees in Ontario, Canada, I like this Dolores O'Riordan's home now for eight years. There are six days before Christmas 6 1 and it is as cold—proverbially speakingâ voted: 7 €”as the anatomical part of a broom-flying hag. "Snotsicles," she jokes over the telephone, her Limerick brogue as thick as the blanket of white covering her front porch. "Do you know what they are? Your boogers freeze during the winter. It's that cold here." She is in a playful and positive mood and why not? After a six-year hiatus, the singer has reunited with her fellow Irishmen to record Roses, the band's first album since 2001's Wake Up And Smell The Coffee. Produced by Stephen Street — he oversaw their first two albums — Roses is tempered by the dark moodiness and delicate balance of acoustic and electric guitars that haunted the group's earlier records. She sings with the inner strength of someone who has walked through fire and lived to tell the tale. Her father passed away UG plus: remove banner while recording the album and on the title track she is singing about him. The vocal is dramatic and yearning and burns with an inner intensity bright enough to warm even the coldest Canadian morning. Appropriately enough, Roses comes out on Valentine's Day. UG: Before we get to the new album, could we talk about some of the events leading up to the recording of Roses? Dolores O'Riordan: Yeah, no problem. Why did the Cranberries break up back in 2003? That was more to do with life. My mother-in-law had cancer and she died in 2003 and so that year we moved over here to Canada so her grandchildren could be with her for her last days. I quit the band then because I could see that in life there's a lot more things than just making music and being on the stage and selling records. There's people and there's love and there's more important things you know and nothing is forever. You know that kind of thing. So we moved over here then [Canada] and when she passed away I started working on a solo record for fun and I became a fulltime mother and I loved it. Because I just wanted to not be in the Cranberries and not be famous. I wanted to experience life in a simple way. I felt like I was always tied down with things and I just felt that if I wasn't in the band, I have a freedom that I never had since I was 18, you see, because I was in the Cranberries since I was 18. I never knew life any other way so I did want to know life in another way — I wanted to be free. Were you excited about making your first solo album. I left the band and started doing solo work more like a hobby. The first album that I brought out, my solo one, was Are You Listening? And I remember there was a beautiful song on it called "The Black Widow" and that was reflecting my mother-in-law when she was sick. A lot of the music are reflections of where I am and where I'm going and what I'm feeling. You worked with Marco Mendoza on Are You Listening? Yeah, that one happened very organically. Marco is a friend of my husband for years and it happened organically; he's an old friend. So you're not some closet headbanger, Dolores? [Laughs] No, no, no, that was just very organic. He's amazing Marco though isn't he? Have you ever seen him live playing? I may have seen him with Whitesnake. That's right, yeah, yeah; he's a super bass player. So it was great to work with different musicians. It was a great experience because it was like having a different palette and a different set of paints and a different canvas. Was there a sense of anticipation or nerves when you recorded Are You Listening? I suppose I wasn't really knowing that people were listening because I called it Are You Listening? See? So I didn't really know. It was like, "Are you listening?" I was wondering who'd be listening? So that was kind of a part of my evolution and I had to have fun and not be in the Cranberries. I worked with different musicians and that was quite insightful. I did a small tour for Are You Listening? about eight months or something and I'd come back a lot as well. I'd go out for a few weeks and then I'd come home for a few weeks and I'd go out for a few weeks and I'd come home for a few weeks and that's the way I do it you know. â €˜Cause I have my children and it keeps me stable and just the mental stability that I didn't have when I was younger when the Cranberries was my whole life and it kind of ended up consuming me. It was too much too young and nothing else. So having my children now, I have four children, it's given me a great stability and a happiness and a life. In 2009, you recorded the second solo album, No Baggage around the same time you got back together with the Cranberries? I know wasn't it desperate? Oh, my god. I did the album, No Baggage, right? And again it was all about enlightening and finding out about life and what I was going through. The song, the single was "The Journey" wasn't it? An extraordinary song. [Recites lyrics] "When I was lost/I saw you pointing towards the sun/I know I am not the only one standing here/And in the darkness I was walking through the night/I could see your guiding light very clear." So I was getting happy in my life — I was going through a better place now with tranquility and serenity and love and peace. But I was also trying to share that feeling with people. You recorded No Baggage before the Cranberries reformed? "I felt like I was always tied down with things It did, yeah. I'd written it all, right? That was winter; I remember it and I just felt that if I wasn't in the band, I was January 2010. What year did we do the reunion tour? It was have a freedom that I 2010 wasn't it? never had since I was 18." I thought it was 2009 but certainly you'd know better than I. 2007 was Are You Listening? so I think 2008 I wrote. So 2009 then I recorded No Baggage and I did most of it here with my friend Dan Broadbeck in his studio and stuff like that. Then ‘cause I live here and I'm a fulltime mom, I just said "Look" because it was freezing, it was -30 and I grabbed my makeup chair and I went out to the lake and put on an outfit and my husband took pictures of me on the lake. And then the album sleeve — did you see that sleeve? It was really freezing and in one of the shots I took my top off but I was facing a tree and I had a tube of lipstick in my pocket. And he wrote down No Baggage on my back and took pictures of it. And then for one more shot I said, "You know what? I always wanted to be up in a tree." So we got a ladder and I climbed way up the tree and it was freezing like –30. And when I got to the top of the tree what was worse is they had to pass me up my shoes, I think. Oh, it was so crazy but then we took the pictures of me up in a tree kind of like a bird sitting on a branch of the tree. Did the two solo albums feed you creatively or did you want to do another Cranberries record at some point? Well, that was No Baggage and once I done it and we recorded it all and then we did our own sleeve and we did it all very organic. And then I thought I'd go and tour a spot. My son, it was his confirmation then in 2009 so I had it all done, No Baggage and ready to release it and all that kind of thing. But in 2009 it was in the summer and he was having his confirmation, my son, and that's like a big thing in Ireland. I suppose it's like what in the Jewish equivalent is a bar mitzvah — it's this kind of thing, a coming of age and a rejoyceful thing.